


We're in a mess, baby

by winterysomnium



Category: AU - Fandom, DCU, DCU - Comicverse, Gamer AU
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-07
Updated: 2012-10-07
Packaged: 2017-11-15 20:35:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/531418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterysomnium/pseuds/winterysomnium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The water rushes by and Jason stands across the stream, guns thrown down onto the grass, the river mumbling around Tim’s ankles, cold with spring.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We're in a mess, baby

**Author's Note:**

> Title is a lyric from the song "Under the Sheets" by Ellie Goulding.

The water rushes by and Jason stands across the stream, guns thrown down onto the grass, the river mumbling around Tim’s ankles, cold with spring. It shivers and ripples and rips on the edges of his feet, above the swing of his toes. Tim responds by taking a step further, by pulling his jeans higher up his hips. (They still keep falling; still barely cling, so low Jason can spot his underwear. But it’s no wonder, no surprise that they don’t fit. They’re _Jason’s_ after all.

Tim won’t manage to fill up spaces like Jason does. Won’t grow into the shape of his hips, won’t copy the spread of his palms. 

But Tim can simulate.

Tim can keep pulling them up higher.)

Today is safe. (It’s _meant_ to be.) Today is another day on the road, between cities, within this game. Their car sleeps in the woods, its mechanic heart cooling down, Tim’s getting warmer, Jason’s tucked under his jacket. 

(He doesn’t love Tim yet. He doesn’t love him. But he’s learning how to make him smile. How many pillows he likes to sleep on. Which radio station is his favorite. 

Jason doesn’t love him yet. But Tim is there to remind him why he should.

Why it’s so important.

Why it’s so peaceful, when they touch on accident.

Why he loved him before.)

The sky stretches as far as Tim has programmed it to, expanding under his fingers like a bubble filled with air, like the elastic of the work uniform he used to be squeezed in. The color tries to meet the hues of the pastel blue of Gotham sunrises but even that has been corrupted, distorted by memory. Tim had been in the desert for too long. (Had seen the wrong stars, the same moon for longer.) He had been used and scratched, nearly deleted and too dependent, too _obedient_ for _months_. For too many commands he couldn’t listen to. 

(And the message keeps reappearing, keeps being written on the walls of his cities, on the fake borders and wooden fences, keeps repeating: “You can’t betray without loyalty.” and Tim scribbles back, erases and codes: 

“You were never loyal to what I wanted, Ra’s.”, scribbles it on bathroom walls and undersides of sinks, leaves chalk on his fingertips, dry and white, hiding on the insides of his shirts.)

And on the day the message changes, nine months later, on the day it says: “But you weren’t either, were you, Timothy?” is when they start to hide.

Where Tim tries to expand them further but he can’t. Where Tim wants to go to Africa, but Jason can’t see it on the map. Where Tim says: “You have to get better. I need you to – to feel better.” _To love me, to see me again._ Shaking with lips pressed to the collar of Jason’s shirt, Tim stays; Jason’s blood a hush that resembles seas, tides and sounds of coming back, of pebbles dragged across the bottom of waves, captured in the shell of his head, in the echo inside his ears.

It’s the moment where Jason suspects. Where Jason sneers and pushes Tim and disappears into the city and comes back ( _comes back_. He never _leaves_ , never leaves _for good_. He’s incapable of that. He goes and he returns and he always carries an apology; always on the bottom of his lips, printed to the front of his teeth. He never vocalizes it and Tim never hears it, never knows the sound. (He _feels_ it instead.) Catches it on his skin, understands it’s there, even if Jason tries to lick it away, even if Jason comes back) three cigarettes lighter, three hours colder, irrational anger heavier. 

It’s the morning where Tim drives and they’re quiet and the radio is scratchy, hoarse in the same tones Jason’s stubble is against his thumb and Jason resents this boy he vaguely remembers, this boy he can’t stop looking at whose profile is a photograph he found in his wallet, white crease lines dividing it into sectors, into a black and white memory, a calendar filled with noses and skin and chins, soft hair that’s so dark it looks wet.

Can’t stop watching this boy that keeps twitching in his seat, this boy Jason sees smaller, healthier, _younger_ when his eyelashes fall, when they flutter to dreams of something that’s too solid for his imagination. Too grounded.

Too real.

“Are we going to stay here today? Tim?” He asks, hands in pockets and his hip cocked to one side, a copy of the boy Tim knew, Tim protects, Tim saw stand in their bedroom and watch Tim brush his teeth, making faces through the mirror.

(It was foggy, Jason’s hair was damp and it was a morning after a fight, after Tim hissing about safety and Jason hissing about the chance to move, to have a proper life – 

it was a day after fear and determination sizzling under their skin, and Tim thinks, he thinks they have a good life. A tiny but warm apartment, enough food and equipment, their own _address_ – isn’t that enough?

“Don’t we already have a good life?” There isn’t always hot water and power failures come at the most unfortunate times, the windows leak cold and rain inside of their living room but they’re never hungry, never without shelter or some money to spare, never without something to share.

Jason sighs and rocks the chair with his feet, swaying it with ease from his spot on the table he’s sitting on, facing Tim who’s seated on the kitchen counter, his legs hooked together at his ankles. He’s looking down, as if every question mark could land beneath their feet, could lay itself out as a blueprint, easy to understand. (It’s his own, personal version of crossing arms across his chest and avoiding Jason’s face and Jason would adore it more, if it didn’t mean the boy is way too pissed, way too displeased to meet the shapes of Jason’s face.) 

He scoots closer to middle of the table; tries not to smile when he notices that Tim’s socks are discolored, the white leaning into soft purple, bluish at his toes, pink curling around his heels. (They’re never going to do laundry right, are they? Just like there’s always going to be something lodged between the cushions of their couch, be it a bundle of wires or a lost part of a console, there’s always going to be a laundry accident, once a month. You can’t grow out of that.) But they still can grow out of their _lives_. “This isn’t what we should be satisfied with! We – _you_ – deserve more. Way more. You hate your job.”

“It’s temporary.”

“It’s been _temporary_ for three freaking years!”

“It _still_ isn’t bad enough for you to risk your life by testing _unauthorized_ equipment, evolved by an _unauthorized_ source, lead by an _unauthorized_ company. That’s a death wish right there. You just need to sign whatever ambiguous contract they’re gonna give you.” 

Jason shoves the chair out of the way; the scrape a screech across their kitchen – across Tim’s eyes – and the jump down is short but still heavy, sluggish like the immediate weight of Jason’s wrists on Tim’s knees. “The only difference between _this_ and _your job_ is in that one word, isn’t it? _Unauthorized_. That’s fucking it, right?”

It isn’t. Jason is _playing_ the games. He’s the _test_ , the subject. Tim is repairing them. He’s there to reprogram, to rewrite. 

Jason is there to win.

But it goes without saying; without Tim shaping his mouth around it. (They both know.)

“Yes. But it makes _all the difference_ ,” Tim says, pointedly evading any touch, any of his mind’s attempts to lean down, to tilt his chin and open his mouth to Jason’s. The thought still goes down to his heartbeat, breaks into sounds around his chest, gets stuck all the way up his wrists.

(How could he touch him, give in to him _now_ , when Jason is already the tiniest sound inside of him?)

Jason shifts the palms he placed on Tim’s knees, tugs at the underside of Tim’s calves and if it wasn’t a fight, Tim would slip lower and Jason would unzip his jeans, would kiss Tim to moans. 

But they’re arguing and it’s a cheap trick to stop Tim from running, to put weight on what Jason wants to say. 

“Tim. You’re there when shit goes down. And you go and you fix it and if you have to fix it inside the game, you do it. That’s being in the same danger as me plugging in to play. In a way, it’s even more dangerous than what any of us do. How many people have died around you already?”

“That’s why I don’t want you dying too!” Tim shouts and the air, the defiance, the anger and fear seem to deflate, to break in the middle of his stomach. He curls and folds and lowers his forehead against Jason’s hair, stays there where crowns used to circle boy’s skulls.

“I don’t want you dying too,” he speaks softly into the hum of Jason’s body, into the strands that tickle and rustle when he swallows.

A page of the open magazine sags as it turns aimlessly, pasting headlines together; the refrigerator starts to whir – reminds Jason that he was thirsty, his throat dry and tight from what he expected Tim to say. 

(Expected him to _do_.) 

The apartment holds its breath, curls around them like a blanket, a spot of stillness within a city that doesn’t not move, doesn’t stop to see if anyone’s suffocating. 

Tim never did. Never needed to take more air, to have better lungs; never waited for the surface. But now he looks like he will never breathe again and it’s – resignation. What he talks with, nearly soundless in the room. “Do what you want, Jason.” 

Before Tim can raise his head, Jason puts a hand on the back of his neck, locks them together and the rub of his fingers sounds like the click of a key. “I want to give us a _chance_.”)

A week later, their chance split at the edge of Jason’s lips; bursting between the worlds like the ribs Tim can’t fix because they’re not broken; a puzzle piece lost to the sidewalk, lost to the weight of a simple explosion, to the impact that made Tim’s world implode.

But it’s back. It’s back washed against green shores with foam that smells after acid and that Jason took several gulps of; drowning in shallows. 

(In the shallow of the water he was treading, in the shallow of his memory, in the shallow of the breaths he couldn’t take in. 

All of them too thick to fight through. All of them too thick to get rid of.

All of them clinging to his body.) 

So they’re back to “Are we going to stay here today? Tim?” and with the river between them, Jason seems to be the phantom planted into Tim’s dreams, seems to be the coworker whose first words were: “Jesus fuck you’re tiny.”, seems to be the roommate that taught him to cheat at poker, the boyfriend he send his first sext to. 

(Like there’s subtext to Jason’s voice that doesn’t need lines to be understood.) 

Maybe they are getting further. Maybe Jason is less wary, less heavy with everything he locks into his lips, maybe – maybe Jason is finally moving towards him.

Tim doesn’t follow the urge to check the map. He stores it for later, for the last half hour before sleep, saves it for dizzy street lamp light. (But a tiny piece of Europe appeared. He can see it. And if Jason wanted to, he could too. 

They can still win. They can still run from Ra’s, can follow the road and reach Gotham, can get out of here. 

They can still have their chance.) 

“No, we should move more to the west. They might catch up otherwise.” Tim walks through the slippery rocks, through his steady voice that lost wavers and trembles, lost fear and turned it into a knot under his tongue. 

(He’s unable to open his mouth properly anymore. He’s unable to kiss Jason like he used to. He’s unable of _sharing_ with him.)

But he programmed himself this way. (He _tried_ to.) He limited his fears. Got rid of anxiety and there’s only a vague bundle of self-consciousness left.

(He left the _guilt_.)

Left determination and restlessness. Because –

“You can’t survive without _moving_ in this goddamn city. And I want us to. I really fucking want for us to survive, Tim. I really do.”

The problem is, they can’t survive _here_ without moving either.

(Did Jason recognize that? Maybe that’s it. Maybe _that’s_ the reason why he doesn’t know where they really are. Maybe the places are so familiar, the rules so overlapped – that Jason can’t see any difference.

Maybe that’s all it is.)

Jason crouches down to pick up his guns, Tim dries his feet against the grass and before they go, Tim presses an apology to Jason’s neck.

(Tim’s apologies are on his lips, stretched from one corner to the other. When Jason has a good day, he returns them into Tim’s temples, so they can fall down his cheeks again, climb the slope of his chin and settle back on his mouth.

That’s what Tim imagines it works like.

It’s as beautiful as a code.)

\---

The man wears a dress shirt, without a tie or proper shoes to hold him together, to hold his business expression he glues on the front of his face; he’s like a mirror. (Tim looks like that on most days. On the days friends die. On the day he needs to stay in the room with their families and _explain_ , solemn eyes and stranded lips.) The man looks messy and tired and there’s dried, scratched away blood beside two of his nails. The paper in his hand probably holds the amount of Jason’s salary and –

if Tim would be the person to turn bitter, he would talk to Jason’s corpse about this. He would walk up to him and look at his face and he would say: “Look, this was the worth of your death. _Your chance_. This was all you thought you were worth.” But he won’t. Tim is glad he can go to him at all. If this were an authorized company, he wouldn’t be allowed to see Jason at all (not before the _autopsies_ ). But here he can. Here he can take him with him. 

The man begins to speak and it’s easy to see that it’s been rehearsed, words and sentences manufactured to smoothly being repeated conversation after conversation (death after death).

“It was a circuitry error. The switch didn’t go off,” the man says, a corner of his lips twitching around _circuitry_ , and Tim could hate him for it.

Hate him for emphasizing _circuitry_ because – 

from all possibilities, from all errors Tim has ever met, this is the ugly one. The one that traps you, that makes you helpless and incredibly small. (That makes you _real_.) 

Tim’s knees go heavy, his lungs shatter, his skin drags across his bones.

( _Jason was beaten to death_.)

“His brain didn’t register that the injuries weren’t real and,” the man pauses, and anyone not in the business would pause too. Would stop their grief for the moment of confusion, of wanting to – to _know_ (did it hurt?). But Tim can’t stop moving.

“Reacted,” he finishes, crumpling the fist he’s ready to throw. The anger he’s ready to spread. 

(Limited mobility; unbroken bones aching out of place; his heart beating out of his chest. Was that what Jason died like?)

“Yes.” 

(This scrawny man that painfully hides a stutter, this programmed for formality man – he doesn’t have a clue. But Tim hacked into the company’s system earlier, looking up the story, copying the game play, sifting through the code. (Finding so _many mistakes_. Tens and twenties of stupid, basic mistakes. And Jason goes and stumbles right upon the worst of them. Because that’s what Jason does. _He stumbles through the worst_.) Tim searched for the exact part where Jason logged in last, the part where Jason died in and – no one can convince him it didn’t hurt. No one can assure him that Jason died without feeling helpless. 

A crowbar and a maniac and an –) 

“The explosion. He didn’t survive the shock of the explosion.”

The man looks on the floor, plastic and white and Tim follows. (It’s the end of the conversation.) All that is left is to take Jason’s body and – 

and wait. Like _Jason_ did. 

(No wonder his heart gave out. How could it not?)

Because Tim’s sure did.

\---

The memories of a year before are hazy. Are centered around a moment that fuses into another that hurts as much as the last one, red to black to green, something Jason can’t explain.

He doesn’t confess to Tim, but he – he feels half dead. He feels as if he isn’t clean anymore, not a proper life. As if he isn’t someone that doesn’t waste things, doesn’t curse his lungs out to get the moist, earthy feeling out, as if he’s not drinking to slur the screams’ words. 

He doesn’t confess that he’s missing parts of their life either.

(He can’t _recall them_. Where did they stop being roommates? Because Tim kisses him and it’s really fucking nice but he – Jason doesn’t remember who started it. When. Why can’t Tim tell him who he’s running from.

Why the hell he’s so angry all the time, too. Why isn’t anything their apartment, cramped and never silent and full of junk they keep stepping on, why is Gotham across the fucking world. 

And why do they have to go back?

Why it’s so _important_ to Tim?)

But Jason doesn’t talk about it. How his throat feels hoarse, as if he yelled for minutes every other hour. How there’s a headache settled in his skull that pounds pounds pounds until he has to drink something, until he has to replace the pain. How he gets anxious, nauseous when someone laughs too loud.

He doesn’t know _what_ it could be.

What’s so wrong with him that he can’t sleep in rooms with closed windows, why Tim has a scar on his neck, why he’s unable to touch Tim _properly_ , with the intimacy Tim longs for.

(Half dead and dirty and damaged. _You can’t touch people with those hands_.)

But it’s when he notices the bookstore that he understands. It’s when Tim speeds up and Jason forces the car to stop and when there’s dread crawling up his spine.

When suddenly the blanks get filled, so fast and blurry Jason feels like throwing up.

(When he takes a breath and it sounds like the burn of a lit cigarette, when he looks at Tim and his bones creak like they’re rusted over, splintered down to the core; when he escapes the car, his steps echoing like ghosts.

That’s when he _understands_.) 

\---

There’s a glitch in Tim’s formula. An error in his code. 

A smear on their street. 

Half of the bookstore is blurred, a hazy intuition of the structure, the window so scattered Jason can’t see more than dots of colors, a kaleidoscope of his skin.

He’s shaking when touches the glass, his hand partly slipping through, the surge of electricity slamming it back, his own instincts stumbling him farther away. 

He grips Tim’s hunched shoulders hiding inside his shadow, just a few feet behind his own and he slams him against the glass that’s so sharp in focus Jason can’t see past his own face, can’t see the woman that resembles his Mother flipping through a book, can’t notice the man that could be Bruce’s double buying newspaper at the counter.

( _How can they both be here Tim thought he randomized the pattern enough –_ )

“We’re in the Ünternet, aren’t we?! We’re in that fucking game of yours! That’s one of the glitches you were working at!”

Jason points at the glass and the colors follow his movement, shatter and change and reappear. Tim stubbornly stares at the hollow of Jason’s throat, at the slumped side of his jacket’s collar, stares and is silent and doesn’t look away once. 

(The smell isn’t perfect, but it’s so close. So close to Jason’s own clothes that Tim is mesmerized. How long has it been since Jason wasn’t three feet away?)

Jason pushes him tighter into the glass, presses until they’re two warmths colliding, until Tim rests his sweaty palms on Jason’s sides; hooks his fingers into the pockets of his jacket and Jason’s let go of him, clutching at the glass. His head hangs down, and if he were the old, the never revived Jason – he would lower it onto Tim’s shoulder, would press his forehead to Tim’s bones.

( _But he’s not_.)

“Am I still dead?” He asks, voice a waver and Tim flinches, like it’s some taboo Jason forgot about. Like it’s an insult and – there’s no fucking way he’s still dead. Tim didn’t do this to him, he _couldn’t_ – 

“No. You’re. You’re not.” 

And for a desperate, short second, Jason wishes for a yes. Wishes for _Yes, you’re still a fucking decaying corpse that’s why you feel so shitty –_

Because – he died. Jason __died. He smiled and he ate the burned toast and he kissed Tim on his shoulder and left and never came back and _died_.

(He’s such a _jerk_.)

“But I was,” he states; answers the questions nagging at the back of his head, battling against his constant headache, struggling to make it to his mouth. (To reach his lungs. To get stuck in his throat. 

_Now_ – now they’re redundant.)

Finally, Tim looks up, mirrors something he used to do years ago covered in two days old sleeplessness and the scent of warm plastic, newly purchased and only getting accustomed to Tim’s tempo, to the rhythm of his work and it – it hits Jason.

_He lost this._

Tim says; wary, but strong: “Jason.” and Jason gets it. It’s no longer “roomie, move your ass, you’re sitting on something very essential to me”. It’s no longer “baby, I really need to shower, so, kiss me later?” It doesn’t equal to those things anymore. 

_Jason_ equals to _dead_ now.

“I.I can’t remember it. I don’t remember a fucking thing.” He takes three steps back, a habit born from countless _step aside_ ’s that were drilled into him; headphone instructions printed into his muscles. 

(His body didn’t change at all. _He_ did.)

“We need to talk. _You_ need to talk. You need to tell me what’s going on. Why we are here, why I died, how I came back, _why_ I came back in the first place. Does it have something to do with those fuckers you’re running from? No, wait. _Of course_ it does.” 

Tim bites his lip, pushes away from the glass and his hair is electrified on its tips, sticking to the lost surface, clinging to the curve of Tim’s neck.

It looks _stupid_ but Tim doesn’t try to smooth it out with his fingers or scowl or laugh even if he’s embarrassed about it and he’s – he’s still the person Jason trusts. 

So Jason sighs, sticks his hands into his pockets so he doesn’t reach out and adjust Tim’s hair himself, pulling the open jacket closer to his sides. “Can we just, go sit down somewhere, have something to drink and then you can explain everything to me to the tiniest details like you always do with unimportant stuff?” he attempts a joke and they both manage wry smiles, like they’re sharing the same memory, a moment that stuck with them both.

Instead of saying anything, Tim nods, and Jason wonders how _he_ ended up being the nervous one.

(And why he’s so anxious about _this_.) 

\---

The coffee is warm and the café smells like cinnamon, from the corner of the door to their seats, near to the windows and far from the counter; it’s a spot to hide in.

That’s all Jason allows himself to think about concerning this place. It looks nice and Tim has never really needed any tips for creating interiors but he took them anyway, and with something slow and thick sinking through him Jason realizes – that this is one of the layouts they worked on together. 

(Two pencils and one paper scrunched up in the corner because Tim’s elbow crooked it, one spot nearly see-through and patchy, erased and remade one time too many. Their shoulders bumped together every other minute and Tim had a bite he couldn’t stop scratching, the motion shaking over to Jason’s own wrist, his pencil skidding along the paper until Jason had to kick Tim's feet but Tim laughed and – that’s so _unimportant_ now.)

Tim cups his mug into both hands and Jason can’t recall if it helps him talk or if it’s just for the warmth, if it’s a way to make his fingers less cold.

( _He should be able to_ remember –)

Tim holds the mug tighter, says: “It was the switch. What killed you. Your brain –” 

couldn’t take it. Jason knows what it does. 

( _So why is all he can see is that warehouse and that heat and laughter_ , loud and obnoxious, worse than the burn of the floor, than the snap of his bones. _Why, Tim?_

Jason swallows this down. He can’t be angry yet. He can’t be irrational yet. Not _yet_.) 

“– decided to fuck up the chemical balance of my body.”

Tim’s Adam’s apple jumps around nothing and he nods, slides his thumb along the smooth surface of the cup.

“Basically, yes. Your. Your heart gave out.” Tim’s eyes flicker across the table to Jason’s hand, curled around his own mug, absentmindedly toying with the silvery spoon. (It’s a habit that used to drive him _crazy_ , the clatter something loud and constant, annoying to listen to in the morning but soothing when Tim was sick, when the apartment was dark.) 

“I was the only person on your contact list, so they called me. I went through the usual “We’re so sorry; this went wrong” routine and got your payment. God, it was the most frustrating conversation of my life. I just wanted to punch out the guy’s teeth so bad.” Tim smiles but it’s more remorseful than an expression he would enjoy, shallow against his mouth. “I planted a virus into their systems instead. I was _so angry_. Of course, I felt guilty about it two days later so I went into their systems again and fixed them, but I locked the game away.”

Great, so Timmy got his revenge. But –

“How am I alive, Tim?”

that’s what Jason wants to know, isn’t it?

How _the fuck_ he’s alive.

Tim looks up, anxious and he’s the boy Jason invited for coffee the day they have met, Jason still punch drunk from nearly dying, Tim shaken (but brave, Jason knows that he’s fucking brave; he went all the way to get him when that error trapped him there –), his eyes curious and wide, Jason’s name familiar to Tim’s mouth in ways he struggled to express –

“You play differently than… than anyone else, really. You play as if the game is real. As if you’re truly alive there. It’s. It’s really flattering. It’s the biggest compliment you can give us.”

Tim’s own name is one of those examples of kids that will be better than you at _everything_ , except social skills, so Jason tugs and pulls and strings Tim into his life, so strongly Tim is now tangled into him even after he shouldn’t _be_ anymore and –

Jason didn’t want that. 

(Didn’t want _any_ of this.)

“You were… resurrected. It turns out you were right, when we first met. My name _was_ famous. But with all the wrong people.” Tim looks away, down to the inside of his drink. He seems determined not to let something slip through, like there’s a reaction he would have to fake, to make it true. (But he only looks back.) “Since the company was unauthorized, I was allowed to take your body with me. When I went to you, they were already waiting for me there. Ra’s and his people. Later I found out that they weren’t part of the company at all. They just search through contact lists of the recently deceased and propose the same offer to others, just like they presented it to me. It’s an exchange system. I do some things for them, and they bring you back. I should have seen that nothing is so simple. That nothing is as _easy_. But Ra’s was the only one not saying sorry. That was everything that mattered to me. I was sick of that word.”

Tim’s eyes close around the sound of his own voice, close with the syllables but Jason’s – can’t. 

(They were closed for too long.) 

If he closes them now, he will only feel dead again. Dead as a whole. Dead to the bone. Dead to the _world_. 

(So he waits for Tim to open his.

It only takes a minute.)

“They resurrected you after about three months of me working for them. All the jobs I did were – of course – illegal. Mostly, it was code cracking. Getting into systems. Getting information. Sending viruses. Instead of creating, I spent my days destroying things. And in the end, they destroyed you too.”

The anger simmers in Jason again, crawls into his chest, bounces up his ribs, pushes at his muscles. But before he talks, before he says what he _needs_ , he has to find out. 

_“What does that mean?”_

“For the resurrection, they exposed you to a certain chemical. I don’t know the details yet, but it strongly affects your mind. For months, you were. Out of it.”

_Crazy._

“So I became a whackjob,” Jason laughs, bitter and short – like a sip of this coffee, were did your taste go when you programmed this Tim – but Tim doesn’t. _Can’t._

“That’s not funny at all, Jay.”

“That’s because I wasn’t joking,” he snaps and Tim, for a second, looks genuinely hurt.

(Even if he has no right to, _goddamnit_.)

“You kept screaming, all the time. They had to restrict you because you wanted to run away. It was terrible. I realized that what they did, what _I_ did was – wrong. Selfish. But I wanted to give us that chance. I wanted to let the thing you died for happen.”

Tim urges and the words almost press against Jason’s skin, he almost _feels_ them. Like Tim is pushing him to understand. 

“And you were getting better, gradually. You were more and more conscious about yourself, about your environment. So I decided to take you back to Gotham. But Ra’s – he didn’t like that. He said I was still in debt, but the deal only said I had to serve him until you were resurrected. So – mostly as a distraction, partly because all the information was illegal – I destroyed their computer systems and ran with you, back to Gotham. I knew that Ra’s would most probably go after us. I had to hide us somewhere and give you enough time to recover.” 

“So you thought the Ünternet was the way to go.”

“Ünternet was my only option at that time. It was nearly done. It was something completely under our control. It was – it _is_ – the safest place for us. I set a base in a well hidden place and plugged us in there. I knew Ra’s was eventually going to find us – and after nine months here he did – but for that case, I made a special security response that automatically logged him and everyone else into the Ünternet too, when he tried to touch the system or our bodies. So they couldn’t hurt us.” 

“As if they can’t hurt us _here_.” Jason glances out the window, his reflection hollow, dyed in too many colors.

Did he look like this after he died? 

“They weren’t supposed to be able to move. They were supposed to get stuck. I don’t know how they got out of it. But it doesn’t really matter. If they hurt us, the switch will go off. We will log out and can trap them in from the outside. Call the police.”

“So they can arrest _you_ for all those jobs. _Great_ plan, Timbo.”

“I destroyed all evidence along with Ra’s computer systems. I guess…that’s why he was so angry.” Tim tries to smile but if falls from his lips, too soon for it to count.

Oh, and _angry_. That’s what Jason is too. That’s what he’s _all the goddamn time_. 

(It’s _everything_ he is.)

“Tell me then: why the fuck are we even running? Why make all this effort, why all the hurry, when it’s so _safe_. When he _can’t hurt us_.” Jason’s tone slides into sarcasm, into bad mockery, into something that makes Tim pause. 

“I thought it would be something to… to drive us. To give us a goal. In the end…this place is still just a game.”

A _game_. Right. 

And Tim is – 

“Selfish. Jesus fuck, you’re so fucking _selfish_!” Jason shouts, yells through his hoarse throat and sore lungs and Tim starts, flinches away from the table. Sinks more into himself, forms a meek answer, says: “I _know_. I’m sorry. I know. But I wanted –” 

“Yes. _You_ wanted!” Jason slams his hands against the table; the ceramic clatters. “But did you stop to fucking ask what _I_ wanted? Oh, wait I was _dead_ at the time. Well, in that fucking case, you should have taken the money, bury me and move on. That’s what normal people _do_ when someone dies!”

“That’s what you would have done.” Tim doesn’t even _ask_ and –

“Yes.” Even if something stubborn says no; even if he thinks _I would never let you die_ , even if Jason knows he’s probably lying.

He has to say _yes_. 

“Because I sure as _hell_ wouldn’t go against every single one of my own fucking moral codes, I wouldn’t listen to someone I know _nothing_ about and I wouldn’t _steal_ just to get something back! You used to hate all those hackers that steal and spread viruses and now, _now_ you’re even _worse_ than them, because you betrayed the _one_ person that wanted to help you. Nevermind that it’s a fucking criminal.” 

Jason leaves his seat, takes his jacket and glances towards the door, the girl behind the counter turned away and the couple sitting across the store pointedly not looking into the direction of their table, their conversation hushed. Whatever. They’re not real _anyway_. 

“Look, Tim. I need a break. From you, from me, from this fucking mess. I – I will come back. I always do.” You took care of that. “Just. Give me some time. A few days. And don’t get caught.” He hesitates, dropping the hand reaching out for Tim’s hair. “I’ll find you soon.”

With that, Jason leaves, doesn’t even pretend to look at Tim through the window as Tim spins his own spoon, as he forces himself to drink the rest of his coffee.

And for the first time in months: he feels afraid again.

\--- 

Tim can’t move. ( _Literally_. Down to the last letter. He’s _stuck_.) 

He never told Jason, but this Ünternet isn’t completely the same as the one he was working on all those years, wire by wire, bits and scraps by bits and scraps. (It’s not the dream place. It’s not the place to train, to try things, to do what you never dared to do before.) This Ünternet is different.

It’s centered around Jason.

(It works as a security measure. It’s the whole point of Tim’s plan.)

Every time, every day Jason gets better, the Ünternet reacts. It widens. _Evolves_. Unlocks places they couldn’t go to before. It lets them through.

And at the end of that trail, at the end of all those openings – is Gotham. It's the last place to get enabled, the last blind spot on the map. So when they get there, when they get _home_ , Tim will know they’re both _true_. That they’re the closest to what they were before.

That Jason is – 

that it’s really _them_ , finally moving on.

 

In a way, Tim changed the whole _concept_ of the Ünternet. He rewrote it. Rewrote its core. So if something – anything that could take his consciousness, his life – happened to Jason, the whole system would crash. Close down. 

(Go off just as the switch; waking Jason up.)

That way no one can hurt him. Not repeatedly. Not more than _once_.

(When Tim dies, well. He will only return. Reload. That was another security measure, for the time Jason was still – aggressive. For the time he used to lash out.

But it’s important not to let Ra’s get hold of that knowledge. How much could he abuse that?

 _Terribly_.) 

Tim didn’t tell Jason that without him, Tim isn't able to go anywhere outside of the street. 

Tim can’t go further than from the grocery store to the hotel.

So Tim isn’t surprised at all when Ra’s finds him a week later.

(He’s only surprised it took so long.)

\---

Jason is the only person Ra’s can’t trace here.

(But if the endless hours of restriction, of keeping Tim awake with a constant level of pain, of _loudness_ is anything to go by, Ra’s wants to. Wants to take them both, wants more than Tim had initially thought. 

He wants _them_.)

“If you didn’t run like you did, Timothy, we could have made an even better deal. It was never in my intention to leave Jason Todd dead. You were just a greatly appreciated bonus.” 

Ra’s speaks, softly and slow, walking in lines across the width of Tim’s vision, dust and bloody clusters of the road splattered on Tim’s skin, dried through his shirt.

The street is left deserted, the thin crowd still walking through when Ra’s appeared escaped as soon as they could, just like Tim programmed them to.

(There won’t be any public executions. Not if the public _runs_.) 

The only movement remaining is Ra’s and Tim’s own eyelashes; the shallow, mechanic blood long stopped seeping through his parents’ slit throats, stopped dripping through their swollen mouths.

(No. They weren’t _his_ parents. They were just unknown people with familiar faces. Just codes with a particular bone structure. Just a painting of his long gone family, remodeled to be in the corner of his eyes, to be a reminder.

 _This is who I am_.)

He still regrets making them. Regrets doing something so silly, so easily misused.

(Was that what Ra’s and Jason wanted?

For Tim to regret _everything_?)

“Do you perhaps need me to repeat myself again, Timothy? Are you too hurt to talk or are you only stubborn?”

Tim holds the back of his hand against his nose, wipes it with the sleeve of his shirt when blood starts to trickle down again, curving around his mouth.

He sniffs and for a second the blood stops, but his voice still sounds clogged, too round. “How did you override the lockdown, Ra’s? You weren’t supposed to be able to move,” Tim asks, sniffling again, the wind soothing his dry lips, humid and soggy with tomorrow’s rain.

Ra’s scoffs, stops in his lazy pacing. “It is considered bad manners to answer a question with a question, Timothy. But if it will ease your mind to know, your little perfect world isn’t as perfect as you might have thought. I was expecting that you would try to trap us. Therefore, we found enough space in your side servers to slip through.” Ra’s steps through the damp, reddish mud and disappears behind Tim’s back, his boots nearly soundless, the swirls of light dust swept away from under his soles.

“Now, back to our initial topic. Where is he, Timothy?” Ra’s sneers and with only a wispy rustle of cloth, Tim’s face is forced down into the ground, scratches printing pathways across his cheek, through the plane of his temple. 

(On his side, his Mom’s eyes dig into his skin, blank and watery, her lips drying, and if Tim put a little less detail into everything, if Tim was a little less of a perfectionist, he wouldn’t have to see this.

She would just disappear.)

He feels sick, feverish under the afternoon sun, the only shade Ra’s silhouette crossing his back, a statue on the other side of his eyes, Ra’s people a circle made out of dark dots, overlapping with the spots Tim sees underneath his eyelids. 

Ra’s pushes more when Tim continues to fight his nausea, pushes harder, pushes to the point of Tim’s bones struggling not to ache, so Tim gives in, gives _up_ and says: “I don’t _know_.” and it’s – it’s true. 

He _doesn’t_. It’s been ten days since Jason left. He can be anywhere from Russia to Spain. He can be around the corner, hiding in the next town. 

(The only thing Jason can’t be is _dead_.) 

It’s also been three days of _this_. Of Ra’s pinning him to walls, heavy and his scent so strong Tim feels asphyxiated, on the edge of passing out for hours, his neck bruised and sore, every muscle in his body strained. 

Ra’s digs his heel into Tim’s spine, the arc intact but the pressure painful, hard to breathe through. 

“You will excuse me if I don’t believe you, Timothy. After all, you have _created_ this world. So tell me,” Ra’s warns; his sword a trickle of cold underneath Tim’s shirt, so sharp it stings, even if the touch is barely felt. “ _Where is he_?!”

The only answer is the grind of Tim’s jaw, the rip of the back of his shirt, the click of a gun.

(And it’s the echo of the gun that freezes inside of Tim. That clatters too loudly down his chest; that bounces across every hollow.

It spins a mantra in his head, forces him to repeat _Please don’t be Jason please don’t be Jason please don’t –_ ) 

“I would say: _I’m right here_ , but that’s too dramatic even for my tastes. The gun will do.” Jason shrugs; the gun’s barrel swaying minutely with the movement, static in seconds and his voice is deeper, stronger than it was days ago. Tim can picture it, can picture the grin that’s a forgotten gesture of his lips, a fracture between who Jason was and who he is, visible like the slip of a tongue. 

(Are you better again?)

There’s not enough time to focus before Ra’s turns around and Jason fires, the bullet grazing the rim of Ra’s sleeve, the group of dots at the back of Jason’s heels in seconds, trying to _annihilate_ but – 

Jason is a fighter.

(If _nothing_ , Jason can _play_.)

The fight is fast and rushed, the barrel of Jason’s gun stained with blood, with _drool_ , and Ra’s – isn’t paying attention to him. He’s still crushing Tim down the street’s pavement but he’s focused on Jason and the way he fights, confident and sharp, rough where it’s unexpected, something Tim can’t take off his eyes either – 

it’s his chance now.

So Tim _moves_. 

The push is hard enough for Ra’s to lose part of his balance, it’s enough for Tim to stumble away from him, still on the ground but farther away, the cut on the side of his spine sluggishly warming the small of his back, soaking the rim of his pants, and his palm brushes his Mom’s thumb, stiff and unnatural, so different from how _Jason’s_ looked –

_focus Tim. Ra’s told you more than he wanted._

Tim gets up, and even if this is _his_ world, he doesn’t have every corner of it mapped, doesn’t recognize some layouts _right_ away so it takes him a few dangerous seconds to blink through the sun, to locate the nearest telephone booth, an old but functional phone seated in its middle, a small surge of victory already reaching down into his cells, pulling at him, making him faster – 

“Tim! Dodge!” 

He turns around and jumps to his left, Ra’s sword an inch from his side and he wouldn’t have missed, wouldn’t make a mistake if Jason didn’t collide with his shoulder, jerking Ra’s arm to the side which nearly gets him his throat slit, cutting through leather, but Jason is faster, better than this attack and he slips away, three feet and shooting again, the bullets becoming strays the moment Ra’s deflects them, lunging at Jason again.

Tim manages to reach the booth, to press the override code that gets him right into the systems, something simple one of his friends have taught him to do, something so close yet out of reach for others, something Tim can use _now_.

“Whatever you’re trying to do Timothy, it’s not going to work! We cracked your systems! They’re useless to you now!” Ra’s shouts across the broad space that separates them but Tim doesn’t waste time to look up, sifting through his security, through the menu, to the manual to – 

the clang resonates through the glass, sharp and high, a screech of metal and – “Whatever you’re doing Tim, please _do it fast_! I’m kind of really losing here,” Jason warns, his teeth clenched tight, the words pushed out gritty and short, half joking when there’s no place for the punch line and –

 _there_. It’s only a several clicks of keys and suddenly Ra’s freezes over Jason’s body on the ground, drenched in a cloud of dust, his details disappearing in blurs of colours, out of focus and giving out like a projection, shimmering above Jason’s chest. 

In ten seconds, he’s gone.

(So are his people, already knocked out by Jason earlier, spread over the road like lost pieces of chess figures, broken statues of ancient architecture. Tim's parents disappear too, but the blood stays.)

As soon as the street clears Tim wants nothing but to slump against the plastic glass, wants to breathe through his nose properly but it’s still clogged and achy and Jason is still on the ground, lying with his eyes closed. Tim rushes out of the booth, walks back to the side of the road, asks “Are you _okay_?” but it’s probably not even necessary.

Jason is smiling.

“Fuck, that felt good. I needed a fight so badly,” he murmurs and his tongue peeks out to lick his lips, salty but smooth, red like a summer sunset, dry and pale.

“What the hell did you do anyway?” He angles his face to Tim’s and quickly sits up, scooting over to where Tim fell against the curb. “Tim!”

“It’s okay. I’m alright. Just tired,” Tim mumbles, rubbing his cheek.

“I’m sorry. I should’ve asked if you’re okay first.” Jason moves closer and carefully brushes a few tiny rocks from Tim’s eyebrow, feels the smooth bones underneath. “I’m sorry I was so fucking late.”

“No, I’m. I’m fine. Really.” Tim scratches at the drying, shallow cut and the coppery hues get stuck under his nails, like the rust of a machine. “And, basically. I coded Ra’s and his people in as trash,” he says and the finger on Tim’s eyebrow stills, Jason blinks. 

“ _What_?”

Tim smiles, tired but amused. “It’s pretty simple. There’s a fraction of the program dedicated to the things that need to be inactivated when they are destroyed or defeated. In a way, it changes their status. In the Ünternet, I coded this state to resemble sleep. Well, at least for the characters. So once I rewrote Ra’s and his people’s codes, their role in the game changed to inactive. And since they’re sleeping, they can’t work on cracking the code or escaping.”

“Why didn’t you do it earlier?” Jason asks while his fingers follow the smears of dirt, the tiny roads over Tim’s skin. The heat underneath his fingertips nearly singes, is nearly a burn and Jason wonders if Tim hides a fever or if it’s because of Jason, because of the touch. 

Tim’s eyes slide to the side, watching Jason’s hand, the smudge of the vague shape. After a moment, he answers. “I couldn’t find them. They were supposed to have certain signatures, but they…weren’t there. They couldn’t have, if what Ra’s had told me was true. Fortunately, Ra’s unintentionally told me more that he wanted. He said they used a side server to get here. And there’s only one way to get into game through a side server – you have to disguise yourself as the background characters of this game. That was pretty clever of him. Since there are so many people, I would never figure out which codes are theirs, or who they are. But since this place was deserted, and I knew they were here, it was easy for me to locate them, when I knew what I was looking for. I traced the signatures present in this area, determined who they are, and rewrote them. That's it.”

“So Ra’s is still in the program, but he can’t wake up?”

“Yeah. Someone would have to manually rewrite his code again. Otherwise he has to wait until the game resets.”

“What about nutrition?”

“I don’t think that he would endanger his life. I’m pretty sure there’s someone taking care of that.”

“What about _our_ nutrition?”

“Taken care of.”

“For how long?”

“ _Long_. But that’s probably a mute point by now. You probably want to get out of here as soon as possible, right?” Tim looks away, _defeated_ and Jason’s hand drops. Instead of placing it on the sidewalk, Jason reaches out, curls it around Tim’s back.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you. I don’t…regret most of what I had said, but I could have been nicer. I didn’t have to storm out like a brat, either. That was just plainly a jerk move.” 

“You don’t have to apologize. I deserved that. I _understand_ –” Tim falls into his embrace, settles his cheek on the round tip of Jason’s shoulder. “It should be me apologizing.”

“But it was _me_ who died. Who left you alone. I promised not to do that, and then did it _anyway_ , because I was being _dumb_ and brushed off what you wanted, what you had to say. As your … partner, I should never do that.” 

Jason’s words tickle the strands over Tim’s forehead; push them against it in strokes, in puffs of air and it sends a shiver through Tim’s back.

He grasps the lapel of Jason’s jacket, forms an empty fist. 

“We were both dumb,” he says, leaning up and stopping an inch from Jason’s mouth, not daring to look up into his eyes.

Jason swallows, pronounces a breathy, silent, “Yeah.” and the space between them is gone, filled up with warmth that spreads down to their toes, across every synapse. Jason opens Tim’s mouth, licks his teeth, his tongue, sucks on the border of his lip, bites the corner of his mouth.

He doesn’t let go until they’re out of losing each other, out of the distance that kept them company, held them apart. 

Jason sweeps Tim’s bangs away from his forehead, holds them back and inspects the scrape that disappears into Tim’s hair, traces it with his thumb. “So, you said we have a long time before our sources run out?” He asks, glancing back to Tim’s wide eyes, soft and river blue.

Tim nods, winces when the movement pulls at the cut. “Yeah. We have several years left.”

“And you designed this world after the real world, right?”

“Not in all details, but. Yes.”

“Then how about we go sightseeing? We’re in Europe already.” Jason gestures with his other hand, spreads his arm in a wide arc.

(It reminds Tim of the way Jason presented his apartment all those years ago, how he showed him the empty room he offered to share, how the room became their workshop, once Tim slept over in Jason’s own bedroom for weeks, pressed to his back.)

“You want to go – sightseeing? I thought that you wanted to head straight for Gotham.”

Jason shrugs and stands up, offers his palm to Tim, still seated down on the curb, a bit confused, a bit breathless but still gorgeous, still the boy Jason needs. “Why would I want that? You _designed_ this game. And I love your games. I love their feel, you know? So why would I want to cheat myself out of it?” He grins, and Tim smiles too, lets Jason pull him back on his feet, their palms close and pressed together, sticky with salt and dirt. 

(And even if Tim aches all over and needs a shower, even if Jason feels irritation build under his skin again, even if he can hear a murmur under the sound of his lungs, it all feels minute, tiny.

Because right now, right where it _matters_ , it feels as if they have already won.) 

And maybe they have.


End file.
